Hidden in Plain Sight

The Initiative

Much attention, rightly so, has been paid to the importance of developing strong teachers, teacher leaders, and school leaders. Yet our understanding of leadership pipelines for K–12 system leaders— including at districts, charter management organizations, and education nonprofits— is in much shorter supply. At EdFuel, we believe these leaders play an integral role in the K–12 education ecosystem; we are committed to developing strong education professionals at all levels of our rapidly changing sector.

EdFuel, in close partnership with The Bridgespan Group, set out to engage a broad group of districts, charters, nonprofits, and funders to dig deeply into the state of leadership development for K–12 sector leaders. We sought both to understand the challenges facing our current and rising leaders, and to surface solutions for attracting, developing and retaining many more capable and diverse leaders in the decade to come.

The Report

What will it take to recruit, develop, and retain a diverse generation of education sector leaders? The answer, based on a spring 2015 survey of noninstructional leaders, came through loud and clear: allocate the time and funding necessary to develop and retain more current staff as system leaders. Following through means fundamentally reorienting our priorities around talent and investing more consistently in the development and growth of leaders.